Apple has announced that its new Mac Pro will be available to order starting Thursday. It unveiled the system in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference, surprising attendees with its cylindrical design. The aluminum body is just an eighth of the size of a standard tower unit -- 9.9 inches tall, 6.6 inches in diameter and weighing in at around 11 pounds.

It's damn near 2014, and what's the most baffling computing experience we have? The Apple TV television experience. It's so disappointing. We get new so-called TV channels -- or little Applets -- that give us a kaleidoscopic glimpse into the content available from a particular broadcast network, but it's also locked down so we have to be a cable television subscriber to view it.

Apple and China Mobile reportedly have cut a deal that will bring the iPhone to China's largest mobile carrier. The official announcement of China Mobile's iPhone rollout is expected on Dec. 18, when the carrier plans to raise the curtain on its new 4G network. "The reason this deal is important is it adds seven Verizons to Apple's available market," said Carl Howe, research director for the Yankee Group.

USPTO just granted Apple a patent for a facial recognition feature that could unlock a mobile device as well as control how it works. That's right, Apple just got a patent so our iPhones can look at us all the time. I just got used to the idea of using my fingerprint to unlock an iPhone 5s, but now my face? I'm vaguely uneasy about the potential for dark uses this sort of technology opens up.

Facial recognition may be added to fingerprint scanning in Apple's device security repertoire. Apple has been using facial recognition for some time to manage images in its iPhoto app, but a patent awarded to the company on Tuesday combines that tech with facial detection to control a computing device. Apple's facial recognition system could be used to identify the authorized user of a device.

Apple reportedly has acquired Topsy in order to gain more access to real-time consumer information. Topsy provides Twitter data for business clients, helping them to gauge consumer sentiment, find influential social media voices, and measure overall exposure on any topic that's been mentioned in a tweet. Earlier this year, Topsy debuted a search engine designed to parse tweets.

There's been some concern over the last year or so over slowing Mac sales. Instead of selling at wildly better rates than the constricting PC industry, Macs have been languishing. Of course, at the same time iPad and iPhone sales have been skyrocketing, so it's not hard to point a finger at iPads as a reason. Makes sense. iPads hold a heckuva lot of computing power inside their one-piece slab.

Apple may have a new tool in its armory, reportedly having acquired PrimeSense, which makes chips for 3D machine vision and gesture-based technology.
Apple is said to have paid $345 million for the company. Reports vary as to whether the deal is done or will close by the end of this week. PrimeSense is perhaps best known as the company behind the technology that enabled Microsoft's Xbox Kinect.

Apple angered millions of iPhone users -- and baffled millions more -- when it ditched the generally functional built-in Google-based Maps app in favor of its own. That was last year, when it introduced iOS 6. Howls of anger rocketed across the Web, and fanboys of other platforms -- including some Apple enthusiasts -- started tracking Apple Maps fails.

Apple snuck out the iPad mini with Retina display in a low-key launch on Tuesday, making it available for purchase online, through personal pickup of Web orders at its retail stores, or from various carriers. The device is also available at selected authorized resellers. However, the iPad mini with Retina display apparently is not available for direct purchase at Apple stores.

It appears Apple is bending to the latest in smartphone designs -- it's reportedly working on iPhone models with curved displays and larger screens. The new designs reportedly will feature screen sizes of 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches, which would make them the largest iPhone displays yet, and glass that curves downward at the edges. "Why would they bother?" wondered ABI Research's Michael Morgan.

Common repairs for its latest iPhone models, including display replacement, reportedly will soon be performed in Apple's retail stores. Apple already performs some iPhone repairs at its stores, but the new program would cover a host of components, including displays, volume buttons, vibrating motors, speaker systems, rear-facing camera and home buttons.

Apple has delivered a delightful mix of products and profits this year, all the while facing skepticism from various quarters over its strategies, plans and abilities to take over the world -- especially the part with low-end, cheap markets. Apple also has been caught up in the scrutiny of tech companies that work with various law enforcement agencies to turn over customer data.

Arizona this week welcomed Apple with open arms. The company will be opening a manufacturing facility there as it ramps up U.S. operations. The new plant will house production of sapphire materials as part of a $578 million deal between Apple and mineral crystal company GT Advanced Technologies. Apple uses the sapphire materials in some of its consumer devices.

Apple has published its first transparency report, highlighting the number of government requests it has received for customer data. However, government regulations prevented it from disclosing specific numbers of U.S. law enforcement requests. Facebook, Yahoo and Google issued similar transparency reports soon after they were implicated in the initial wave of NSA surveillance allegations.

Forget the gold iPhone 5s and the tiny color palette of the iPhone 5c because they might not matter if CODE Fluidics can produce its color-changing case through a new Kickstarter campaign. Here's the premise: CODE Fluidics developed a microfluid technology that lets consumers express themselves by changing the color of their products in real time as often as they want.

Apple on Monday announced its fourth-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2013, including revenue of $37.5 billion and a net profit of $7.5 billion, or $8.26 per diluted share. In the year-ago quarter, the corresponding figures were revenue of $36 billion and net profit of $8.2 billion, or $8.67 per diluted share. Apple this week also revealed that it sold 33.8 million iPhones.

The Mac came first, but the iPhone and iPad are what rocketed Apple to the top of the consumer technology mountain. The thing is, while the iPhone is a great phone, the head-scratching success of Apple's mobile device sales is only partially due to the hardware and OS itself. Apple's success is all about how well Apple creates, connects and distributes its entire hardware and software ecosystem.

Apple threw down the gauntlet to the PC industry and aimed some veiled barbs at rival Microsoft at a Tuesday launch event to refresh its software and hardware lines. Apple announced new editions of its iWork and iLife suites, which will come free with any new iPad, iPhone or Mac. Further, all of its customers can upgrade to OS X Mavericks, the latest version of OS X, for free.

In a flurry of presentations at its special media event on Tuesday, Apple introduced new iPads, MacBook Pros, the Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks -- available immediately, and free -- as well new generations of iWork and iLife app suites. The biggest buzz comes from Apple's brand new iPad, the iPad Air, which is 20 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than the fourth-generation iPad that it replaces.

Apple will likely debut a new iPad and possibly a new iPad mini at its Tuesday event in San Francisco. There is speculation about a new CPU, a keyboard case, better cameras, a splash of color, and the likelihood the new iPad will come preloaded with the buggy iOS 7. If the enterprise is looking for a little more business-friendliness from Apple, it may not find much gratification this time around.

Apple's iMessage instant messenger service, which has made headlines for being uncrackable by law enforcement, may not be so secure after all. An internal DEA document published in April stated that it was impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices. Not so, said Quarkslab researcher Cyril Cattiaux, who identified weaknesses in its end-to-end encryption.

Apple appears to have been handed a potent weapon it can use as it battles in courtrooms around the world to assert its patent rights. Specifically, in a recent re-examination of a key multitouch patent held by Apple, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last month upheld all 20 claims included in the patent, according to a filing spotted on Thursday.

I never would have imagined that I would jump on the bandwagon for the CEO of a British luxury fashion company, but here I am preparing to gush over Angela Ahrendts, who will take over Apple's retail store operations in early 2014. Apple CEO Tim Cook made the announcement Monday, and the first thing that came to mind was that the massively male executive team at Apple was finally choosing a woman.

Apple has slashed orders to suppliers for the iPhone 5c and parts for the device, just three weeks after its debut. Apple claimed 9 million 5c and 5s iPhones were ordered in the first three days following their release Sept. 10, but it declined to break down the figures. The consensus among analysts was that the 5s was outselling the 5c by a considerable margin.

Apple on Tuesday sent out invitations to an undisclosed event to be held Oct. 22 in San Francisco, fueling fresh speculation about the company's planned product launches. It's widely expected that Apple will unveil new versions of the iPad and iPad mini. "The most solid rumors are that we'll see a 9.7-inch fifth-generation iPad," suggested Jeff Orr, a senior practice director at ABI Research.

Apple's latest version of its flagship smartphone, the iPhone 5s, is outselling the company's mid-tier iPhone 5c at a rate of two to one, according to statistics from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Apple's simultaneous launch of two iPhone models was a first for the company, so there was no basis for gauging consumer reactions. It now appears the 5s is far more popular.

More evidence that Apple is moving toward cutting a deal with China's largest mobile carrier appeared Wednesday on an Apple website. An employment notice for an engineer with extensive knowledge of China Mobile's homebrew mobile technologies was spotted on Apple's China website. The Beijing-based engineer reportedly would support and drive the carrier approval of mobile phones.

Apple's traditional autumn iPad announcement event is slated for Oct. 22 this year, and while we don't know exactly where the event will go down, it seems pretty clear to just about any Apple-watching newshound that Apple will announce new iPads with the new 64-bit A7 processor. Some are claiming Apple will slim down the current iPad, retaining the screen size.

The market has only just absorbed the newest offerings from Apple -- the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s -- but already certain elements have started to get excited about the next, big smartphone thing coming out of Cupertino: an iPhone with a larger screen. The speculation was kicked off on Monday by a research note from analyst Peter Misek of Jefferies & Co.